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Greetings!

Sunday, 21 August 2016

Like Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, my adoring public (well, Chris Platt) have been calling 'encore'! Who am I to deny them? Who am I to rest on my laurels? To digress for a moment, I recently bought a biography of James Kennaway, the author of that perfect first novel, Tunes of Glory (also a major motion picture starring....) , and read an amusing story of his early days in the army. When Kennaway joined The Black Watch for his national service, the adjutant told him that he could apply for a commission after his basic training, or he could have two easy years as a corporal 'in the Intelligence Corps, whose badge is a pansy resting on his laurels.' Not exactly politically correct (and would an officer of the Black Watch care?), but of its time, and with a link to laurels. To return to the point at hand....

It is some four months since I posted last, and little in the way of glue and paint has taken place. However, I have, not so long since, completed the Airfix Whitley, and what a lovely, lovely kit:

As you can see, it's factory-fresh. If you know your Whitleys, you will, by now, have spotted the missing bit. After finishing the paint job, the decals, the wash etc, I went to add the aerials and the rather prominent DF loop housing. No problem with the aerials, there they were, on the sprue. But the DF housing ?? Where? Why? WTF?? Not there. That will teach me to spend months doing a kit.

On a different note. On the 24th July, it was exactly a century since the photograph below was taken:

It is entitled 'Sgt. Gregory's squad', and shows a newly trained squad of men from the King's (Liverpool) Regiment (the old 8th Foot). One of the men is my maternal grandfather. Of all the men in the photograph, only my grandfather and five other men survived the Western Front. I wasn't sure what to do on the 24th July, a century later. I had an idea of taking the photograph on a pub crawl around the town, but, then, I didn't want to end up dropping the photo. In the end, I cut some leaves from an oak tree in my garden (in a pot!), and decorated Sgt. Gregory's squad with English oak. God rest their souls.

I haven't been doing nothing at all since I last posted. My allotment plot has gone from fit only for an agent orange attack to a nicely productive 1/16 of an acre. I've also written/had published a few bits and pieces, with some relevance to those who are interested in the Very British Civil War type world. For these latter, see the sidebar.

Quotation of the moment

'In a sense, nothing in life is planned - or everything is - because in the dance every step is ultimately the corollary of the step before; the consequence of being the kind of person one chances to be.'

Anthony Powell, The Acceptance World (A Dance to the Music of Time), 1955.

Cpt. Front

About Me

New Men-At-Arms

Not out until February 2018, but order your copy early - you know it makes sense!

NOW IN PAPERBACK!!!

The Home Guard - 'This is likely to be the standard reference book on the subject for many years to come'; Bernard Lowry, Fortress Study Group.

A Vanished Ideology Essays on the Jewish Communist Movement in the English-Speaking World

Yiddish-speaking, English-speaking, Jews in the Communist movement. With a chapter on British Jews, ethnicity and class, by Al Front.

When Jews had a place on the Left.

The Labour Party is sunk in a mess of anti-Semitism, but it was not always thus:

Alf R. Ont on the wireless

Click on the image and scroll to 01:05:23 for the dulcet tones of Mr Ont, talking about women in the Home Guard.

Women in the Home Guard

From The Conversation, 5th February, 2016. Active, patriotic British women to the fore...

NEW BIOGRAPHY of 'FLYING' FAY TAYLOUR

277 pages of thrills and spills. 'Fanatical Fay Taylour', the greatest woman motor sports champion yet. A speed fiend on race tracks across the world, and a political activist who was banned from the USA, and interned in the UK. Member of the ultra-right underground in 1940s London and Dublin, later an Irish republican and supporter of Castro. Click image for a FREE ,yes, FREE, Pdf version provided by the University of Warwick.

Evolution and change in politics

A review of a new history of what was once a notable element of political allegiance among the Jewish diaspora. (Clink on the image for free link).

Germany calling...

The woman who recruited 'Lord Haw Haw' to the Berlin wireless. Socialist, Bolshevik, National Socialist, enemy broadcaster. (From The Historian 119; click on image for Pdf)

BBC Radio 4: Red Clydeside, Decoy Defences and Invasion panic

More Radio 4 'Making History' rambling - from 20th November 2012 (click on the image for link)

'The Land of My Dreams'

British Great War literary combatants and their writing about the war and home. A Pdf of an article from Cultural & Social History, vol. 8, no: 2, June 2011. (Click on image for link).

British Jews & the Communist Party of Great Britain

More reading for the VBCW enthusiast, not to mention the discerning reader (click on image for link). From Socialist History, vol.12, no: 41, September 2012

BBC Radio 4: Speed, women, and fascism

Listen to my dulcet tones, talking about 'Flying' Fay Taylour on BBC Radio 4's Making History (click on the image for link)

'Fay Taylour: a dangerous woman in sport and politics'

A must for the VBCW gamer - the most successful woman motor sport ace ever and a fascist. Click on image for journal link, an open access Pdf will eventually be available.

The Armourer magazine, March/April 2012

The true daughters of Britannia who joined the Home Guard

Political internment without trial, 1940 style

Fascists, nazis, and the IRA interned. Click on image for back issue of Britain At War, issue 46, Feb 2011

George Blake, literary Scot in the Great War

The Great War fiction of the veteran, George Blake - from Cencrastus no:67. Out of print, but I can send a photocopy, if you wish.

For the VBCW war gamer

In History Scotland, March/April 2011; click on image for free Pdf.

Fifth Column panic!

Buy a back issue - all that is left

The incomparable generation of 1914

from The Historian no:110, Summer 2011, magazine of The Historical Association; click on image for Pdf.

BBC Radio 4: Stand By the King!

Listen to my words of historical wisdom about the BUF in Norfolk on Radio 4's 'Making History'. Click on image for link.

One I did earlier...

Musso and the RSI

Fascism in Scotland

From the Scottish Historical Review, volume 87 (2) 2008 (click on the image for Pdf link)

Another Home Guard one...

A 50 page booklet, now out of print, but available as a pdf from Warwick University - click on the image for the link.